One of my favorite tools is getting a significant upgrade. At its core, Symbaloo is great, social, digital bookmarking. It gives you a tile-based system to save all of your essential sites on one wall. From a school standpoint, this is great from the start because it gives younger teachers a place to have their littles easily access where they need to go.
Where it comes up a notch is when you realize that you can embed Google tools into it. This means it can be a fantastic avenue to things like choice boards and differentiated workflows. All you have to do is write the directions in a Google Doc then pop in the Google Doc link. It also means you can use it for things like curating Youtube walls
In recent years, Symbaloo has been basically three different platforms. They have had the regular Symbaloo I talked about above, a pro version which gives some control over domains, and a system called learning paths which uses the tiles to make a game board with learning activities. Would it make sense to combine all of these? Well, yes, and that’s what they are doing. By the end of the summer, all three will be combined!
Check them out at symbaloo.com.
cross posted at www.bigguyinabowtie.com
David Lockhart is an edtech presenter, speaker, advocate, and coach with over ten years' experience teaching high school social studies. As an Education Technology Specialist with the Iteach Center at Kennesaw State University, he works with a metro Atlanta school district to personalize learning for students with the aid of technology. Read his blog at bigguyinabowtie.com and follow him on Twitter @bigguyinabowtie.
